It was stupid, but I definitely assumed that kissing Garen now wouldn’t really be that weird, if I’d done it before. But now that it’s happening and I know it’s him, my mind is consuming itself in a thousand different trains of thought. Am I doing this right? Is this the way he pictured it? Did he picture it? How far does he expect this to go? What the fucking shit am I supposed to do with my hands?

Garen pulls back just enough so we’re not kissing anymore, but he’s still definitely in my personal space.

“Are you okay?” he asks.

“I’m fine. Why?” I whisper. This seems like such a bizarre time to have a conversation. It’s so like him to do that though. Start getting chatty the second I’m willing to do this.

“You’re shaking,” he says.

“No I’m not,” I force out. I tighten my hands around the fabric of his sweatshirt, clench my fists until my knuckles turn white and my hands stop trembling. Garen’s hands shift on my waist, like he’s not sure if he should pull back.

“Yeah, you are. Do you… want me to stop?” he asks.

“Don’t,” I say. I tilt my face up to his and lean towards him slightly. Just as my lips brush his, he leans his head back slightly again.

“Travis, if you’re not okay with this, I don’t want—”

I push myself off the wall and turn so my back is to his bed, then back up until I feel the edge of the mattress hit my legs. I sit down carefully, then lie back, yanking him down on top of me.

“I said don’t stop,” I say. Even though I did it, it’s still kind of a shock to suddenly have him pressed hard against me. He’s heavier than I’d expected, but that’s probably because I’ve basically never had anyone lie on top of me before, so I don’t have much of a reference point. He shifts, though, braces one knee on each side of my legs, pushes himself off me slightly. I wrap an arm around his neck and push his hair away from his face.

“You okay?” he asks again. I nod.

“Mmhm,” I say, drawing his face back down to me. We kiss again, a little more lazily than before. It’s so strange to acknowledge that I’m actually doing this now, to acknowledge that all of his little comments and gestures for the past two and half weeks have been heading towards this. I’m not just kissing some guy, like I had thought I was earlier. I’m kissing Garen. Bill’s son, my almost-stepbrother, a guy I didn’t even know until a few weeks ago, who I didn’t even like until… I’m not even sure I like him now. We’re not friends, at least not how Faye and I or Corey and I are friends. The sudden mental image of myself making out with Corey is enough to scar me for life, and I tighten my grip on his hair. He inhales sharply at that, drawing the air out of my mouth so I’m suddenly light-headed. He leans back, though, moves his lips to my jaw, my neck. I tip my head back into the pillows to give him better access and let my eyes roll shut. He whispers something against my throat.

“Hmm?” I say softly. He shakes his head.

“Nothing. Not important,” he says. I pull his head back slightly.

“No, what’d you say?” I ask. He doesn’t answer, just kisses me again. And again. And again. I grab the zipper pull on his sweatshirt and drag it slowly down. Once it’s all the way open, I run a hand across his chest, down his stomach. God his muscles are hard as a fucking rock. I jerk his shirt up, slid my hand under it onto his abs. He shifts his weight back onto his legs as he moves his hands down to my shirt, his fingers fumbling for the buttons. I shove his shirt up a little higher and move to help Garen with unbuttoning mine. I’m so close to just pulling it open and letting all the buttons pop off, but this isn’t some bad porn movie. It’s real. We finally get it open and I push his sweatshirt off his shoulders. He pulls his arms out of the sleeves and tosses it behind himself, somewhere near the desk. I push him back, still pulling at the hem of his shirt. He leans away and starts to pull it off.

There’s a crunch of tires on the driveway, then a slam of car doors.

“Fuck, are they home already?” Garen hisses.

“Is that Mom and Bill?” I ask. He nods. “Shit, shit, get off.”

Garen scrambles to get off of me and I button my shirt back up as quickly as I can. The front door opens.

“Boys? Bree? Are you home?” Mom calls up the stairs. I stumble off of Garen’s bed, look around the room for my mask and cape before I realize I left them in my room. I spin around and head for the door. Garen catches my arm.

“Wait a second,” he whispers. The end of the sentence is said against my lips as he kisses me one last time, hard and fast and then he’s pulling back. I bolt across the hall to my room and shut the door as quietly as I can. Mom apparently didn’t really care too much if we’re home, because she doesn’t come upstairs for another hour. An hour I could’ve spent in Garen’s room. Sixty minutes I could’ve been kissing him, had his lips on my neck, been pressed into the mattress under his fucking amazing body. I’ve never hated my mother more than I have now.

I check my watch. Eleven forty-three. The day’s almost over, and with that my one-night-only agreement to what Garen’s been offering since we moved in here. I lie down on my bed and stare at the ceiling, trying to pointedly ignore the way I can still almost feel him on top of me.

I hear Mom and Bill heading upstairs. There’s a knock on my door. I roll onto my side and close my eyes, feigning sleep. I hear Mom open the door, then shut it again when she sees me. Across the hall, she takes a more direct approach and knocks on the door, opens it.

“Garen, it’s time to turn off that music and go to bed,” she says. Garen doesn’t seem to say anything, just shuts off the stereo. Mom thanks him and shuts the door, heading down the hall to her and Bill’s room. I wait five minutes. Ten minutes. Fifteen minutes later, I get up and open my door cautiously. I stay there for a second, listening for any sound down the hall that’d signal they heard me, then step out of my room across the hall. I tap one finger on Garen’s door and wait again. I hear his bed creak as he gets up and then his footsteps on the carpet. The door opens and he stares down at me for less than a second before his teeth are on his lower lip and he pulls me into his room.

“Just tonight, right?” I say. The expression on his face changes, dims slightly, and he looks down.

“Yeah. Just tonight,” he says. I frown and open my mouth to reply, but he brushes a hand under my jaw, closing my mouth, and leans in to kiss me. I let him, sliding my hands up his arms, across his shoulders, up his neck and onto the back of his head, knotting my fingers in his hair. He slips a hand into my back pocket, letting the other one rest lightly in the small of my back. I feel his lips curve up into a smile against me, and I mimic the action. The hand on my back disappears and I hear the door shut behind me before it returns to its previous place. I steer him backwards to his bed and he lies down, bringing me with him. I try to remember and imitate things from before, like the way he put his knees on either side of me and kind of braced himself with his arms to balance his weight, but I’m shaking again, too much to actually stay like that. I shift so one of my legs is between his and let a little more of my weight rest on top of him. His hands slide just up under the back of my shirt so they’re resting on my bare skin. I pull back slightly and hold his gaze for a few seconds before leaning forward to kiss his forehead, nose, lips, chin, throat. I continue my trail down to where his skin disappears under the collar of his t-shirt, then return to his lips. His left hand slides from my back around to my stomach, stroking my skin gently. I tense up. I’m definitely not built like him. Less muscular, more just scrawny. Nothing I’d really like to compare to him. His hand shifts again, though, this time down my stomach to the top of my pants. He strokes the skin right above the waistband for a second before undoing the button. He’s sliding down the zipper before I can snap out of it enough to realize what is actually happening. I grab his hand and break the kiss.

“Wait,” I breathe. Garen blinks, then shakes his head.

“Right. Sorry,” he says. I’m not sure if I should reach down and redo them myself, or if that would be weird. But Garen has that covered. He pulls the zipper back up and fumbles with both hands to button them.

“Sorry,” he repeats. “Got, uh…”

“Yeah. Me too,” I say. Nice job, Travis. Way to make the entire experience awkward. Or, more awkward. It takes a little while, but Garen eventually gets back into it, his hands now firmly staying above the waist. I want to do something more with my hands, but it seems like no matter what I go to do, it’d be sending mixed signals. I settle for keeping them planted on the pillow.

It goes on like that for a while. Every time Garen’s hands start to wander, he snaps them back up to my waist, and he makes sure they stay there for at least a little while. He figures out how to get around that rule anyway, grinding his hips up against mine whenever I seem like I’m moving. I worry his lower lip between my teeth and push my lower half down to meet him. Clothes? Intact. Innocence? Not so much.

“Fuck. How long have we been doing this?” he asks, laughing softly. I shrug and he grabs the alarm clock off his nightstand. “Bullshit.”

I turn the clock to face me. Two oh seven. “Bullshit,” I echo. As I say it, though, I sit up and attempt to straighten out my clothes. “If that’s right, I should go back to my room. At least attempt to get some sleep.”

“It’s not right. It’s actually only nine o’clock, so we’ve got at least five hours until you’ll be thinking that. Come back,” Garen says, pulling me back down. I grin and kiss him once more before sliding off the bed.

“I really do have to go. ‘Sides, if we get caught?” I don’t have to finish, because we both know. Garen makes a face at me.

“Fine. Night,” he says. I open the door and pause when he speaks again. “Just tonight?”

I rotate slowly on my heels until I’m facing him again. He’s propped up on his elbows, his hair mussed and his lips swollen and red from mine. I turn back around and say more to the door than him, “Just tonight.”

-

When I wake up later that morning to the buzzing of my alarm clock, my original plan of pretending nothing happened doesn’t work. It’s the first thought in my head. I instead try to acknowledge that it happened and move on, but that doesn’t do it either. I grab my clothes out of the dresser and head down the hall to the bathroom. I lock myself in and drop my stack of clothes on the counter. I turn on the shower, give it a second to warm up, then strip down and step under the spray.

The hot water feels good on my back, which is inexplicably sore. Okay, not inexplicably. It’s sore from holding myself up at an awkward angle above Garen for two hours last night. I squeeze my eyes shut and start washing my hair, trying to block out the mental images. It doesn’t work, just distracts me so I end up with shampoo in my eye. I direct my face under the spray, grit my teeth, and yank the faucet all the way to cold. Fuck. Fuck fuckity fuck fuck. Well, that distracts me well enough, and I finish showering in under a minute. I dry, get dressed, and head back into my room down the hall. My shit’s scattered all over the place, and it takes me ten minutes to find my American Lit book. I probably would’ve found it last night before bed if I hadn’t gotten… distracted. I shove it all into my backpack and toss it on the bed, heading back to the bathroom. The door is shut and I can hear the shower on the other side. I knock.

“What?” I hear Garen call from inside. I focus my attention on the doorknob so I’ll stop picturing him showering, but it doesn’t really work.

“Hurry up. I need to brush my teeth,” I say loudly.

“Travis, just come in,” he replies.

“You’re showering, dude,” I say. He laughs.

“I didn’t say ‘join me.’ Just come in, brush your teeth, and don’t look at me,” he says. I take a deep breath and push open the door. “Unless, you know, you want to, in which case I’m not going to complain,” he adds. I glance over at him without thinking. That’s when I realize our shower curtain is a beautiful, beautiful thing. The top half is completely transparent, and the bottom half is an opaque sort of sea foam green. I can’t see anything from Garen’s waist down, but what I can see through the top is definitely not a bad thing. I shut the door and turn to face the sink. I grab my toothbrush, squeeze a little bit of toothpaste onto it, start brushing. I can see Garen in the mirror. His hands are flat on the tile beneath the shower head, and he’s leaning forward slightly so the spray is directed onto the top of his head. He stays like the a few seconds, the water gathering on his face before dripping down into the drain and running in tiny rivers down his back. Then he reaches down and adjusts the faucet. The amount of steam in the room seems to lessen gradually, and I fix my gaze on the top of the mirror, where the fog is fading slightly. Is he…?

“Shut up,” Garen says suddenly. I look at his reflected image in the mirror.

“I didn’t say anything,” I say.

“You thought it. And you thought it loudly. Shut up,” he says. I rinse my mouth and drop my toothbrush back into the holder on the counter. I hop up onto the counter and grin at him.

“I thought what?” I ask.

“Fuck off,” Garen snaps, shutting the water off.

“Seems to me like you’re the one who needs to be fucking anything, not me,” I say. He reaches around the curtain and grabs a towel off the rack on the wall. He wraps it low on his hips and pushes the curtain aside.

“Well, unless you’re offering, your opinion is kind of unnecessary. Move?” he says. I shift over a few inches and he fishes under the counter, producing a blow drier, a flat iron, and two different types of styling product. I stay where I am and watch him towel his hair dry. He drops the towel on my lap once he’s done and I toss it to the ground. He spend five minutes blow drying his hair, then another fifteen straightening it. He starts at the back and works his way forward, adding wax as he goes to ensure that the spikes stay up like they’re supposed to. He goes through it again at the end, retwisting the spikes until they’re all just so. The whole process takes half an hour. Once it’s done, he shoves everything back under the counter and looks at me, as if he knows I want to say something.

“You do your hair before you put your clothes on?” I ask.

“It’d dry while I was getting dressed if I did it the other way,” he replies. I frown.

“You dried it anyway,” I say.

“There’s a difference. If it dries naturally, it gets curly,” he explains. I reach out and start retwisting the spikes, just as he’d done before. Garen quirks an eyebrow at me, and I let my hands fall back down.

“I’m going to go change. You wanna come watch that too?” he asks. I shake my head and he grins, dropping his hands onto my knees. I instinctively part my legs and he steps forward between them. “Well, offer stands if you change your mind,” he says. He slides his hands up my thighs, up my chest, to the back of my neck, where he laces his fingers together and pulls me forward as he closes his eyes. I almost let him. His lips are just barely touching mine when I speak.

“One night. That’s all.”

He freezes, opens his eyes again, but doesn’t pull back. I do. He crosses his arms, staring at me. I stare back. Finally, he turns around and heads out to his room. I stay in the bathroom for another minute, then go downstairs to the kitchen. Everyone is gone by now. I grab an apple from the bowl on the counter and bite into it. Halfway through, I dump it in the trash and swallow my pills with my last bite. Therapy tomorrow. Joy oh fucking rapture.

Garen’s boots pound down the stairs and to the front door.

“We’re leaving now,” he yells to me. I shoulder my bag and follow him out to the car. He’s backing out onto the road almost before I get my door shut.

“What’s your problem?” I ask.

“Are you seriously asking me that?” he demands. I nod. He slams his foot down on the gas pedal and we shoot off down the street.

“Calm the fuck down,” I say.

“Fuck you,” he snaps. I’m not sure how to reply, but I quickly learn I don’t have to, because Garen launches. “What’s your problem? I’m not asking to be your boyfriend, for fuck’s sake, I’m not even trying to get you to have sex with me, which, just so you know, is taking a lot of restraint on my part, ‘cause if we went my usual speed, you and I would’ve fucked like, twenty-eight times in the nineteen days I’ve known you. I’m trying to figure you out, but you’re not really helping me, are you? You flirt with me, then you’re screaming at me three hours later. You come onto me at the party, then you act like it’s all my fault. You fucking kiss me for two hours and then you flip a shit when I try it again five hours later. What’s your problem? It’s not like I’m gonna propose to you if you kiss me too much. Forget getting a ring on your finger, I can barely get your fucking tongue in my mouth. Just, fuck, Travis, what do you want from me?”

Um… wow. I don’t think I’ve ever been around somebody this pissed off before, even during my parents’ divorce when they couldn’t stop screaming at each other. But that’s close, so I resort to the tactic I used back when they’d turn their completely unwanted attention to me. I keep my mouth shut and stare at the ground. Seconds go by. Minutes.

“Okay, you know I actually was talking to you there, right?” Garen says finally. I press my lips together and look at him. He looks a little less pissed off now. Not by much, though.

“I’m sorry,” I say. He laughs hollowly.

“Yeah, you sure seem it,” he says.

“I am. I just…” I draw in a deep breath, then expel it slowly. “You’re the only guy I’ve ever done anything with, okay? And based on what you’ve told me, your list seems pretty extensive, but you remember the first one, right? How well did that work out?”

He’s silent for a minute before he looks at me.

“It’s not the same,” he says finally. I turn back to face the window.

“Of course not. ‘Cause this time you’re the one who’s getting fucked over,” I say.